Heaven's gate

After looking around the narrow valley, Silas did not find any more nightshade berries. The miasma that had been lingering in the valley began to fade away little by little, as the berries were the source of the miasma, and now there were none left. The valley, once hidden under the miasma, came into full view. Dark vines crept along both sides of the valley walls, and many basin-sized holes dotted the surface. Seeing these holes made Silas feel uneasy, even though he didn’t suffer from trypophobia.

TIK TIK TIK

As Silas studied the holes, he soon heard sounds coming from them. Alert, he immediately hid behind a huge rock. Moments later, huge black crabs began pouring out of the holes one by one. As soon as they emerged from their lairs, the crabs made a beeline for the nightshade berry plants. Upon finding the plants empty, their compound eyes narrowed sharply, and they began scanning the area vigilantly, trying to find the culprit. Loud, gunshot-like sounds echoed throughout the valley as the crabs angrily snapped their claws.

Silas shrank back, knowing exactly who they were looking for. The sight of the crabs left him stunned, and he swallowed hard, briefly imagining how delicious a crab barbecue would taste. But when their numbers grew, surpassing a hundred, he quickly decided to adopt a vegan diet—at least for now. He was confident he could handle a few of them head-on, but hundreds? No way. He wouldn’t even know how many pieces he’d be torn into by their pincers.

Silas silently retreated, sneaking out of the valley as the sound of snapping pincers gradually faded behind him. In truth, these were the smallest monsters Silas had encountered in the forest so far, and he was itching to test his strength. But even a lion has to back down when facing a herd of buffalo, he reminded himself. He didn’t want to get carried away by his newfound power, especially since he wasn’t yet sure how dangerous the forest could be.

For now, Silas decided to leave the crab valley alone. He was confident that, with a few more levels of strength, he could handle a bunch of them. But trying anything now would be suicide. Having already mapped out a rough outline of the terrain, Silas began to explore, looking for new fruits to consume. He wanted to increase all his affinities to 100, but to be honest, Silas wasn’t even sure how many elements existed in total. All he knew were the nine core elements.

Silas decided to put the matter aside for now—thinking about it wouldn’t accomplish anything. Time was not something he needed to worry about. With the advantage of a time ratio of 1:1000, Silas felt no pressure to rush his exploration or the acquisition of new affinities. So, the long grind began.

On the second day, Silas discovered a huge, abandoned cave. He wasn’t sure what kind of monster had once lived there, but he decided to make it his temporary abode—at least until he outgrew it. Silas knew that if his growth rate continued, it wouldn’t be long before he wouldn’t fit inside any cave. It was a problem he would have to face sooner or later. To be honest, Silas knew of a solution, but at his current level, it wasn’t achievable. So, he set that thought aside for now.

A month passed in the monster world. During this time, Silas hadn’t returned to the human world, as he was afraid to leave his body unguarded in the monster world. He knew he’d be safe in the human world, but the same couldn’t be said for the monster world. In reality, less than an hour had passed, but Silas’ growth had been astonishing, to say the least.

Only one evolution point could be achieved per day. In all honesty, this wasn’t much of a limitation, as it normally took multiple days to track down and hunt a monster successfully. Things got more complicated as people reached higher levels, as high-level monsters were nearly as intelligent as humans and many times stronger. A relatively unconfirmed theory circulating online suggested that different races fell under 14 different categories. It was unclear who came up with this or where the idea originated.

The 14 categories were:

Common (Normal)

Uncommon

Rare

Epic

Legendary

Mythic

Divine

Ancient

Eternal

Transcendent

Celestial

Godlike

Primal

Exalted

People unsurprisingly concluded that humans belonged to the most basic category—Common. Even if species from the Common and Uncommon categories were at the same level, such as Voyager, their combat power differed greatly, like comparing an ant to an elephant. Even if both were level 100, the elephant would be much stronger. However, exceptions occasionally existed that could bridge this gap.

Returning to Silas’ journey: after spending a month in the monster world, Silas had reached 30 evolution points. In addition, he had discovered 37 different types of affinities, most of which had reached double digits. Silas was even lucky enough to stumble upon a couple of advanced elements, such as lava and crystal, near one of the dormant volcanoes.

For example, his fire affinity, one of the core elements, had reached 18 points. He even managed to get his hands on lava fruits. These fruits grew on vines and looked like watermelons, but with red stripes instead of green. When opened, the inside resembled a basin of lava. After some hesitation, Silas gulped down the fruit. It was spicy hot, and he almost burned his tongue in the process, but the taste was incredibly delicious.

The crystal affinity was a rarer find. Crystals didn’t grow on plants. Silas found them near fragile rocks inside the dormant volcano, where crystal-like mushrooms grew, sapping the rocks of their nutrients and turning them into fragile mud. Silas was unsure whether to eat the mushrooms or not—they might have been poisonous. If he were still human, he would have refrained. But with his current body, there weren’t many things he feared consuming. As he had guessed, as soon as he ate the crystals, the familiar notification popped up in front of him:

"Radiant Shroom consumed. Evolution points = 0.01"

Silas found over a hundred mushrooms, leading to a significant gain in crystal affinity points, and his daily evolution points quickly reached the cap.

Silas also realized that the resources in this land were renewable. If he was lucky, the fruits would grow back from the same plants after a few days. However, most of the time, massive monsters carelessly crushed his precious affinity sources underfoot.

As for his size, after growing 30 times in the past 30 days, Silas was now a literal giant. He measured a length of 42.75 meters and an approximate height of 25.30 meters.